


The City of the Wells

by Quillori



Category: Le città invisibili | Invisible Cities - Italo Calvino
Genre: Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-23
Updated: 2013-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-05 18:26:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1097210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quillori/pseuds/Quillori
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everywhere the people of Isaura go about their life to the sound of water - falling from from urn to trough, running through the pumps, washing in cool waves through the irrigation channels.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The City of the Wells

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Senri](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Senri/gifts).



**The Festival of Life-Giving Water**

Each tool was in its proper place, its proper order: the axe and the saw, the adze and the lathe, the drill, the hammer, the chisel, the neat row of files and the little heap of sanding- stones. Hilakhi murmured a prayer to the gods, touching his hand ritually to the set-square and ruler, and began to set out the the work for the day, humming happily under his breath. There was always work for a good carpenter, and he took pleasure in it: the skill of his hands as he turned the wood to his purpose; the massed knowledge of his trade, won gradually by his predecessors back to the earliest days, so that there were years of study now, satisfying years of learning each wood and each tool, each method of jointure, each treatment against decay; the intricacy of the finished work, his piece slotting into place with all the rest to make the machinery that gave Isaura life.

 _I went by the garden where she lives: the vines hang heavy with fruit_ , he sang - a popular song he had sung a hundred times, but today filled with new meaning as he thought of the pretty, dark-haired girl who smiled shyly at him, her eyes warm, and how he would go to her parents: they would welcome him as a fine son-in-law, whose training and skill would be a sure support their beloved daughter (for surely she must be beloved by all who set eyes upon her).

~§~

The hard-baked earth reflected back the remorseless sun, heat rising as from a furnace. The sweat ran freely over Tudhi's back and sides as he swung his pick again, splitting the ground. Soon the shovelfuls of earth could be thrown up as the digging proper commenced; soon a new well would be formed and the water would flow to the farm, Halit and Liyat no longer going to fro to the public fountain, urns balanced on their heads; the coin from market days filling up the little storage chest under the watchful guard of the family shrine, not flowing like water from their hands to pay their neighbours for a share from their wells. Meanwhile he swung and swung again, regular as the turn of the norias.

~§~

The Overseer of Public Works, Tuntash District, looked critically at the urns for the new noria, which continued failing to be of a perfectly even size no matter how much he frowned at them. No doubt the potters had been in a hurry to finish before the festival; no doubt also it would now be impossible to find anyone to supply new and more suitable urns until not only was the festival over but everyone's hangover had worn off, which would put the whole project behind schedule. How much easier his life had been when he had to deal only with his fellow scribes, writing letters and balancing accounts! Now that he was in charge of entire projects, he had to deal with quite another sort of people, people like these potters, superstitious and unreasonable and incapable of following an orderly schedule. Really, you would think that potters of all people, their hands all day wet with the water the gods supplied, mixing it with earth and fire to create something strong and enduring, would be decently religious people, working in harmony with the gods - but was it so? Not in the least! They spoke darkly of secrets, of the gods all buried beneath the earth, moving unseen through the hidden waters, corresponding with the people above only through what they permitted to be sent up, and the city itself dead and unblessed, not alive and singing at every point with beneficent deities. Doubtless it was these ignorant beliefs that justified their lack of attention to detail, their tendency to make things as the spirit moved them, not correctly and properly as part of a larger machinery that formed the glory and nourishment of the city.

~§~

Sitting in the shade of a fig tree, Tudhi touched his hand to the ground, closing his eyes for a moment in prayer, before biting into his lunch: the sharp taste of the goats cheese, the coarse bread, a handful of grapes, bursting sweetly in the mouth, and tomorrow a festival day, with the promise of a pigeon, cooked overnight with dates and sausage in a clay pot buried in the fireplace.

~§~

Halit pounded the clothes in steady rhythm, content with the world and her place in it, for this was one of her favourite tasks; other girls complained at the effort and how their backs hurt afterwards, but to Halit it was as satisfying as religious ceremony: the ground was solid beneath her knees, the sun warm and approving on her back, and the cold water brought up from the sacred depths filled the washing trough; she herself was somehow one with the earth, and the sun, and the water, though they were so much older than her, and eternal: even so, she, a normal young woman, was through this timeless ritual a part of them, and they of her.

~§~

The man strolled down one of the pleasant avenues of Isaura, arm in arm with his wife, not at the moment Overseer, with hundreds at his command, but plain Kue, walking in the cool of the evening with his dear wife Melit, as he had been accustomed to do since he was a young man, newly married, for the gods who everywhere kept guard in Isaura had protected her from all illness or accident, so that they had had many years together, and fine children to gladden both their hearts.

Kue looked about him contentedly and with gladness: the city was green around him, none of the precious, water-giving land going to waste, with small farms and city buildings coexisting entwined, and arbors everywhere, thick with vines, and the roofs given over, except for the water tanks themselves, to growing vegetables; likewise every balcony had its share of plants growing upwards towards the light, so that the city seemed almost to be one large hanging garden.

~§~

Everywhere there were horns raised to the skies, blaring a joyous cacophony of celebration. Acrobats jumped and twirled, catapulting between roofs, leaping up so high they seemed almost to fly. At the instant the sun had emerged into the dawn-tinged sky, the festival had begun. Now Liyat and Halit wandered through it hand in hand, marveling at the acrobats, at the way the doves, disturbed by the trumpets, wheeled around and around in the sky above, at the beautiful festival clothes everyone wore. They had already been to the very deepest well, to kneel by its side and touch the heads as well as their hands to the ground, surrounded by their fellow throng; further away, around the mechanism of the pump, the other citizens gathered, touching it here and there, as though it were anything more than cleverly constructed wood. Halit had bowed her head a second time, hoping to propitiate the gods for the disrespect shown them by those silly enough to think the great and uncontrollable powers could be broken up into a hundred thousand lesser beings, beings that could live in a well made joist, or even a bucket!

**The Half-Year Mark**

Bet-Edaue, one of the six Chief Scribes, surveyed the assembled Overseers approvingly: all conveyed the correct degrees of respectful humility and eager ambition to fulfill their duty. And there were would be much for them to do in the coming days: not only was a major extension of the aqueduct system planned, with a concurrent overhaul of the existing norias to bring them all in line with the best design, and restore any wear or damage; not only this, but also (a project of his own devising) better provision for tackling fires: although wood was too precious for house building, having to be imported (there being no room in Isaura for forest), it was an integral part of the entire water system, necessary for the norias, the windlasses, the pumps ... thus there was altogether too much wood, and in too vital use, not to fear flames from some incautious cooking fire might spread. Hence the new system whereby water might instantly be taken from any citizen's roof tank, and directed at the fire by means of a small, portable pump. With what pleasure had he received the royal command to carry out his plan! And the new Well Tax, not to mention the extended corvée obligations on all labouring households of five or more people, would provide easily for the entire project.

~§~

All was in readiness. The proper part of each plant was prepared correctly and the wool was made into yarn; the dyeing could begin. Here were the leaves, dried then kept in a vat of water: into this would go yarn treated with alum, and after boiling, out it would come, by some natural alchemy now yellow as the sunlight gilding the topmost weathercock. Melit laid her hand upon the vat and thought of the gods of the weathervanes, who directed the winds to blow favourably, powering the windmills, powering the pumps.

Here were the flowers, equal in weight to the waiting yarn, and placed the previous evening in their own vat; here was the yarn treated with iron sulfate, soon to be leaf-green. The vat was cool under her hand, like the life-giving water when it first arose.

Here was the fruit bark and ash, and the untreated yarn: an entire morning's boiling would give it the dark brown of the urns that turned by the thousands on norias across the city. Melit laid her hand gently on the vat and thought of the clatter of the wheels, turning and turning, passing the water from god to god; her heart was full of gladness that the people of Isaura had been blessed with the skill to create the city as she should be, home to all the gods, who would otherwise have no purpose.

Here were the rhizomes, which would soak all day with the alum treated yarn to give the grey of smoke escaping to the skies, and here the rhizomes which she would boil with untreated yarn for the blue of that same sky.

Tomorrow she would have new yarn to weave, a prayer in every colour.

~§~

Everything was packed away neatly: her tunics, her underdresses, a single coat; the embroidered cloth she had been making since childhood against this day; the little dish from which she and Hilakhi would eat their first meal. Set out ready for the morning there was all her jewellery (no great amount, the best piece a broach Hilakhi had sent her), along with the brightly coloured bridal wraps she would wear and the fillet to bind her hair for the first time in the style of married women. Now that the day was finally come, Liyat found she hardly knew her own heart. How she longed to go to Hilakhi, who was so handsome and clever! How she hated to leave her family and her home for a new and unknown life! And of course she knew her parents had rejected Hilakhi at first, and only when the new well of which they had been so proud swallowed their savings in taxes, and Yadhi had injured his leg, so there was only Tudhi to work the land and fulfill the corvée both, had Yadhi given his consent. But he had given consent, however unwillingly, so perhaps that was alright?

She knelt in front of the shrine, with its beaten copper bowl kept always brimful of water and its clay figurines ( _clay and water, clay and water: the hard ground surrounds the deep water, the body surrounds the soul_ \- so the potters chanted every day as their wheels spun, their cries blending with the clank of the pumps, the clatter of donkey's hooves, the cooing of the doves to make the familiar background noise of the city). In front of the shrine was the family chest, now safely filled with her bride price: Hilakhi had been glad to marry her, and generous. She was sure that meant they would be happy together. Looking around to check she was unobserved, she slipped the smallest figurine away and hid it among her packed clothes, touching it reverently before she covered it up, promising to look after it well in her new home, if the gods below would protect her and her family.


End file.
